If the devotees who introduced us to bhakti don’t inspire us later, what should we do?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

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so if a devotee is introduced to Krishna Goswami by some devotees but then later does it find that devotee, the devotee circle very inspiring and then can that situation be compared with traditions going over to Ravana’s side to Rama’s side and can a devotee also love to change one’s devotee circle? Firstly the two are not comparable because we are in a devotee circle whereas Ravana was clearly anti-devotee so we cannot compare even if that devotee circle is not very favorable for us, we cannot compare them in that situation at the same time it is not necessarily that the same devotees will inspire us bishops in the past 25 the same devotees will inspire us later because we also grow, they also grow and as we move onwards we understand our nature better and when we understand our nature better then we may also find that okay that actually the way these devotees are preaching that doesn’t inspire me so much so if that happens then we need to adjust and we need to find being inspired in our bhakti is our responsibility so we have to seek inspiration and if we find some other devotees are inspiring, that’s perfectly fine where we can take more inspiration from that devotee circle the two important things are there right we should not we should always be grateful to those devotees who help us in our bhakti just because they are not able to they are not inspiring us now does not mean that they are not good devotees or that we should we should be ungrateful to them we should always be grateful to them that they help us at particular time in our life very importantly for that we are grateful but we should see that the same Krishna who helped me through these devotees at this time now the same Krishna is inspiring me through these devotees so if we see those devotees are separate from Krishna then we will have a fragmented ji but if we see the integrated vision Krishna will inspire me through this devotee or this devotee then we will move onwards towards Krishna in a steady way so that is the first we should not be ungrateful to them we should always be grateful and second thing is we should not do this that is the brim of the mind because any devotee circle that we go through there will be problems it is if you want a circle of ideal devotees we are not going to find this in between yet and even if we found that circle we would not be admitted in it because we are not ideal so there are always going to be some devotees who may rub us wrong and sometimes some problems so we should not be hopping from one devotee circle to another because then as I was telling that mind is looking for easy activities so it should not be done just on the brim of the mind and it should not be done in a way that disrespects or disregards the other devotees but if if after a steady observation of our mind we feel or maybe say I like to study Shastra more but here the devotees are interested only in Buddhist tradition Buddhist tradition is wonderful but if what inspires me is spiritual study then I may have to look for a circle of studies of spiritualism or if my interest is more in doing say Haryana and I am surrounded by people who want to go deep into Shastra I don’t feel inspired, I feel burdened by that then I may shift to a circle where there is more of Harinam Sankirtanam these are simple examples but the point is that we have to take responsibility for our spirituality so if we need to find a social circle that inspires us then we should do that and ideally speaking it should be done with at least informing the devotees if not taking their advice if the devotees’ guidance are mature then they will bless us sometimes it may even happen that there are several examples sometimes a devotee takes a lesson from a particular spiritual master but after that they feel more inspired by some other spiritual master then they tell their spiritual master Mahavali or whatever I would like to serve one day spiritual master is not an object it is done in a very graceful, respectful way and the devotees serve their spiritual master so how we see it in our movement is that there is Guru, Sadhu, Shastra so for us in Krishnamurti movement, Prabhupada manifests through all these three Prabhupada manifests as our Guru that is our primary spiritual master Prabhupada manifests as the general devotees respond they are like the sadhus for us and Prabhupada manifests as his spokesman Shastra and that approach is in a broader sense also so it is the same Krishna who is manifesting through whichever devotee we have been inspired by so we need to do it in a very respectful courteous way those who have guided us should not be rejected or slighted by us and we also if we go to some other devotee circle we should not speak bad about those devotees that was just our need and that devotee circle is also wonderful for some other devotee circle for our devotees that devotee circle is much more how do you do this so that is perfectly fine there is a room for individuality in bhakti and at the same time while asserting our individuality we shouldn’t stamp people on others toes and hurt others we can gracefully move on what is done does it answer your question? thank you very much